


fallen by perfect hands

by softreminiscence



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softreminiscence/pseuds/softreminiscence
Summary: sakakura confesses, and it feels like the blade of munakata's katana.





	

**Author's Note:**

> kink meme fill !!!! spoilers for ep uh 9 or smth ? in mirai hen but..... it diverges from that so it isn't super spoilery
> 
> Juzo successfully confesses to Munakata and it actually goes okay
> 
> Sooo, that scene where people where people were speculating he was about to confess to Munakata: this time it actually works out! And it's enough to bring Munakata back to his senses! While Munakata isn't sure of his feelings just yet, he accepts Juzo and assures him things are fine, basically.
> 
> I crave a sweet, happy alternative to canon

the whole world  **stops** for sakakura juzo.

  


in the vacuum that is created due to the absence of time, sakakura dodges the slice of munakata’s sword and grabs at his wrist, twists until munakata makes a pained noise and the katana clatters to the floor of the hallway. only then does time start back up again, but slowly; sakakura’s hands shake, as does his body, when he realizes that he’s just injured munakata in some way. “sorry,” he’s apologizing, but he was not the one who was prepared to kill the other. he kicks the katana away, still shaking, then releases munakata without thought. “sorry,” he’s saying still as he stumbles away from him, opting for the wall. “i didn’t mean to, munakata.”

  


munakata simply stretches his wrist experimentally, not yet feeling the pain, but noticing the unnatural  _ clink  _ of the bones when he moves it to the right. it is usable, but damaged. the brutality of his expression is manic as he steps forward towards sakakura. “you’ve finally turned your back on me? willing to injure me to keep yourself in this game to spread further? you cannot trick me, despair.” he is chattering to himself more than to sakakura; he needs first aid and protection but he’s still coming after sakakura, but with his hands now, sword abandoned. “i’ll have to eradicate you one way or another.”

  


“what’re you saying?” sakakura moves so that his back is not trapped, so that he could make an easy escape if he needed to leave. if he leaves though, then he will be turning his back on munakata. “i have something to say to you, munakata. can you just listen for a second? i don’t understand what you are going on about…” his face is scrunched up in confusion. he feels betrayed in a way, but he’s grasping at straws to try to figure out what is actually happening. he is willing to give munakata the benefit of the doubt still, even after he has attempted to grievously injure him. he wonders if he would have just simply left him there or if he would have mourned the loss.

  


“i do not need to hear any utterances from you any longer.” he’s too close to sakakura now, hand coiling around the fabric of his shirt as he pulls sakakura close. emotion is void from his expression; he no longer is munakata, but instead appears as a machine that threatens to destroy any that stand in his way. he is little different than how gekkogahara appeared, except sakakura knows that there is no internal hardwiring here. munakata is a man with blood coursing through his veins and sakakura does not want anymore of that spilled. “no longer will you cloud my judgement.” munakata’s strength due to the drugs allows for him to easily press sakakura against the wall. he moves in too close, pulling a fist up in preparation, but then lowers it. there are certain things that everyone is incapable of doing, and munakata is incapable of beating sakakura with his bare fists. the swiftness of the sword dug out the problem in the simplest ways, but this makes his stomach roll uncomfortably. the fear in sakakura’s gaze is tangible, he thinks, but fake nonetheless.

  


with his chest heaving and his feet off the ground, sakakura feels humiliated in a way. this resembles just the same position he had been in once before. the unexpected knocks him onto his ass and he has to rub his own face in the dirt. “munakata, listen, i have to tell you something about our school days…” he struggles finding his words, watching as munakata’s expression does not change. it seems that he is waiting for him though, so sakakura continues. “...i told you enoshima was innocent, but i knew that she wasn’t. she was blackmailing me.”

  


munakata falters, releasing sakakura in this surprise. his expression shifts for the first time since they had met back up with each other. he steps back from sakakura, furrowing his brow. in his drug addled mind, he cannot decide if this is a trick or if sakakura is confiding within him a truth that he has never spoken aloud before. munakata does not know which one he wants to believe more. “what…?” he asks quietly. “what do you mean…? how was she blackmailing you?”

  


a bewildered chuckle escapes him as he knocks his head against the wall. sakakura wishes that he did not have to be in this position; he had struggled so long with swallowing his own feelings so that he would never have to have this moment come to fruition, but he never could rid himself of them. every time that munakata chuckled, smiled, spoke, sakakura felt that familiar warmth take over his body. he really had always been in love with munakata for as long as he could remember; he was even still in love with the deconstructed version of munakata standing before him. “she had photographs… she told me to betray you or she would send them to you. at the time, i hadn’t imagined that she would...she would cause this type of calamity.... that she could cause all of this. i should have just told you and defied her, but i thought... i thought i could still protect you throughout all of this. no matter what happened, i thought that as long as you didn’t know, then i could protect you. it was so stupid of me to turn my back on you, but i vowed that i never would again… that i would find a way to make it up to you, to the world.” he looks down at his hands uselessly. “i had this picture of you that i kept, that i framed, that inspired me and made me happy… unbelievably happy.” he flushes, pointedly looking away from munakata. if he had just stabbed him, perhaps it would have been easier to die than to explain this situation.

  


“a picture of me…?” he narrows his gaze; sakakura nods.

  


one of his hands comes up to bury itself in his hair as he slams his head into the wall again. “a picture of you, yeah. you were giving a speech and... i don’t know why i kept it. i mean, that’s a fucking lie.” he pauses uncomfortably, “i love you, munakata. i have… ever since our hope’s peak days and i didn’t want to see your face when i told you. i didn’t want to see the hatred or disgust or all of the things i see in the mirror, or all the expressions and emotions i read on the faces of all those reserve students who laughed at me while i just laid on the wet ground while enoshima made me beg for her to keep it a secret. i wanted to kill her; i thought i would kill her before anything happened. i never could have imagined she got to other students, to yukizome.” the confession feels like an anvil dropped atop his chest and he immediately wishes that he could sink into the ground beneath his feet and disappear forever, but even so, the haze fades from munakata’s face and he looks much more like himself as he closes his good eye and slinks over to the wall to stand beside sakakura before sliding down until he’s seated on the cold ground.

  


munakata was prepared to kill the man who was in love with him because he thought that he had succumbed to despair, but instead it seemed as though he had been fighting it since the beginning. there is no response for awhile; both of them simply exist with their backs against the wall as minutes fall away from each of them. “you still…” he whispers, finally, into the darkness.

  


“yea,” sakakura answers too quickly.

  


silence settles over them again. sakakura knows that he should not have told him, because he’s still opening himself up for abandonment. he is still giving munakata a chance to leave him, but within the confines of this building, sakakura can still protect munakata. too much time is passing between them, but sakakura dares not move to check his bracelet. instead, he just slides down beside munakata. he still has not left. he could have left by now. sakakura had expected him to leave by now.

  


his voice is quiet, “i’m sorry.” the apology is for so much, but sakakura has never been one for words. his mouth cannot shape them in the way that he wants to, so they are just jumping from the precipice of his lips.“i never thought it would be a problem like this. i always thought i could just hide my feelings, bu—,” a warmth settles atop his hand in between them. he looks over at munakata to find him with his head leaning against the wall, wetness against the side of his face glistening in the dim light. he’s crying. sakakura’s chest tightens so painfully that he thinks that munakata has retrieved his sword in the silence and has stabbed him through the heart, yet there is nothing between them except for their hands, munakata’s atop his; their fingers are barely tangled. with his free hand, he reaches forward to wipe at the tear, but stops short with the tips of his fingers barely brushing against munakata’s skin.

  


an apology drips from his lips as he laughs sourly. he shakes his head. “you shouldn’t be apologizing to me. i never imagined how hard all of it must have been for all of you.” he grits his teeth and all of his pain makes sakakura feel empty, hollow, useless. this weakness is out of character for him, but sakakura understands that munakata cannot always be the strongest one. “to think, i was going to… i was… i was going to kill you…” his hands are shaking and sakakura can feel the tremors, so he takes munakata’s hand into his own to try to comfort him, lacing their fingers together.

  


he doesn’t know what to say, but he knows that he wishes he had the words to comfort munakata, instead, he just holds his hand and gently wipes at the tears staining his cheeks with his calloused thumbs. his heart breaks as he watches munakata fall apart in the most human way. there is no expectation in sakakura’s touch; he knows that it is not necessary for his feelings to be reciprocated; he knows that it is not necessary to talk about them any longer. munakata now knows and their sins are scattered upon the floor: sakakura’s betrayal, his feelings, munakata’s murder plan, their failures. all of it stretched down the length of the hallway as reminders that they were both contained their faults. sakakura’s was not acting earlier; munakata’s was for thinking so illogically in a moment when sakakura needed him the most.

  


“it’s okay…” munakata finally says. “it would have always been okay. i would never have left your side, because i know that you’d always stand beside me. i want to always stand beside you as well.” there’s the faintest sniff as he shifts until he is closer to sakakura. his hand is lifted to brush sakakura’s disheveled hair out of his face. “i appreciate your honesty now.” imagining how long sakakura must have kept this secret to himself makes munakata want to tear at his chest. sakakura had shouldered the weight of the end of the world by himself, solely because he thought that he had been the reason for it. both of them could have held each other up, but munakata had been looking away from him and towards the future that he could create. it had been foolish for both of them to stop depending on each other. they still needed one another throughout time. “i’ll never push you away, sakakura. i never want to do that. i’m sorry that i thought of hurting you… that i thought you were despair.” he retracts his touch, but allows sakakura to continue holding his hand. sakakura’s thumb brushes across his calloused skin and munakata’s eye flutters closed at the sweet sensation.

  


both of them continue to settle into silence; with the truth sitting between them, each of them can relax for just a moment. they can focus on their breathing and heartbeats rather than the dread that is encompassing them constantly. “we need to get you first aid,” sakakura says quietly, turning his head to evaluate munakata’s injuries again.

  


but instead, time slows again and he prepares himself for the burning pain of his blade; his heart aches terribly.

  


munakata’s lips meet  his own, gentle and careful. there’s a curiosity in his touch that explains the hesitance. the kiss is so soft that sakakura almost doesn’t feel it, but then the world crashes down around him and he feels too much all at once. it attacks him and tears him open, exposing his chest cavity to the world to watch as his beating heart trembles, shudders, and shakes. he holds the kiss for too long and it feels awkward, but when he pulls away, he has a look of puzzlement that is endearing. sakakura bites down on the inside of his cheek as he wills his complexion to stay even. his chest rises and falls rapidly as he pulls away from munakata completely, dropping his hand and pulling away. anxiety and surprise cause him to panic. “i’m sorry,” sakakura starts to apologize, but munakata quiets him by gently touching his shoulder. affection as small as that has undone sakakura completely, reduced him to this.

  


“i wanted to…” he says, openly, touching a hand to his own chest. “i might not have thought about it much before, but i wanted to now. i think it was nice… to be kissed by someone who loves you.”

  


and hell does sakakura love this man. those words make his stomach flip and he has to stop himself from kissing munakata again to show him how it really feels when someone who loves him kisses him properly. he deserves to be kissed like that until he’s weak in the knees, until he’s trembling, until his lips are bruised. he’s imagined his first kiss with munakata, many times, just as often, he’s imagined his second kiss, his third, the finite number of kisses shared between them, where they occur, how munakata’s breath hitches, what munakata says while they are kissing. he’s imagined every detail of every scene while pouring over notebooks at hope’s peak. he knows how he wants to kiss munakata kyosuke, but he knows that now is not the time for that. if he kissed him like that now, then it would be a kiss that would be more of a  _ goodbye  _ than an  _ i love you _ .

  


“let’s get out of here alive, then i’ll show you how it feels to be kissed by someone who loves you,” he says shakily, looking away pointedly and flushing. “let’s go, i think i got an idea.” he stands up, then helps munakata to his feet before they start down the hallway and towards something tangible, something real, something new that they can finally call theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> if the title doesn't make sense it is a warped version of the song that inspired this!! i'm always up for feedback + i hope you all like it!!! i take requests from the kink meme @kinkyronpa (dreamwidth) AND on my blog @softreminiscence !!!


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